Alaina Giordano, 38, Former Summit Resident

By Lisa Belkin

Alaina Giordano died at the age of 38. Her children were by her side.

Giordano had breast cancer and made headlines when she lost custody of her two children, 12-year-old Sofia and 6-year-old Bud because a judge ruled that she would become too ill to care for them.

It was, I wrote last year, a wrenching case -- the ugliest of divorce battles combined with a tragic cancer tale. Giordano, a freelance writer, could not leave her doctors in North Carolina (whose clinical trials she credited for keeping her stable for four years) and wanted to keep her children with her in the home they'd always known. Her ex-husband, Kane Snyder, took a job in Chicago (the only one he could find in this economy, he said) and a judge ruled that the children should live with him because he was the one with the paycheck and the better health. There's "no telling how long she'll live," Judge Nancy Gordon said of Giordano.

The result was an Internet storm. A Facebook page was created in support of Giordano, petitions were launched, articles were written, The "Today" show called.

Then, as with so many stories that grab our hearts, the spotlight dimmed and most of us forgot. Not because we didn't care, but because someone else came along who we cared about next.

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